Solitude
by TheBAU
Summary: Now here he is, with a belt wrapped tightly around his arm and a needle in his hand and he's having trouble remembering when his happiness has ever lasted.


**Solitude**

**A/N:** Not my first fanfic, however it is my first Criminal Minds fanfic.  
It's short, nothing special really. Just something I was in the mood for.

**Summary:** 'And now here he is, with a belt wrapped tightly around  
his arm and a needle in his hand and he's having trouble remembering  
when his happiness has ever lasted.'

xx

When he thinks back on it, he's sure that he's never once known a happy moment in his entire life. If he has, they were fleeting. He had been a twelve year old child prodigy in a Las Vegas public high school, with a schizophrenic mother and an absentee father. When he had joined the BAU he'd been estatic. He'd found a family; a place where he knew he belonged, but even that didn't last long. Georgia took away his innocence, and the thrill for his work.

After Georgia he became an empty shell, nothing close to the person he once was. Up until then he had never known what it was like to be the victim, only what it was like to save one. It was easier when he hadn't known. He would give anything to have that ignornace back; to not have to look at himself in the mirror everyday and realize that that was exactly what he was now, a victim. He hated it. He hated that he now depended on a needle to solve his problems, if only for a little while. It didn't last. Like all of the things that brought happiness to his life, it was fleeting. There one moment and gone the next.

He had gone out with JJ once. He remembered how happy he'd been when she'd said yes, but he had misinterpreted it for something it wasn't. When he'd tried to hold her hand halfway through the evening and she'd pulled away, given him that look - the look that plainly said 'I don't want to hurt you', he'd known exactly where she stood. He was the friend, the confidant, the quirky co-worker, but he was not the boyfriend. He never would be. Sometimes he looks at her and Will and thinks about how that could have been him; should have been him.

And then there was Lila Archer; a beautiful, blonde actress. Never in a million years would he have thought he'd ever have a chance, but when she'd kissed him in her pool he had felt it - happiness. Joy. Of course, logic brought him back to reality. It was easy for her to fool herself into thinking what she felt for him was real, but he knew better. It was merely a transferral and nothing else. She had fallen (and he used the term very loosely) for him because he had been playing the hero, because it was convinient. But he wasn't a knight in shining armour, no. Just a geek in a sweater vest. And so he'd pushed Lila away, ruining his own happiness before she had a chance to do it herself. It was easier that way.

And now here he is, with a belt wrapped tightly around his arm and a needle in his hand and he's having trouble remembering when his happiness has ever lasted. He wonders if maybe he just isn't meant to know anything but tragedy; if this is the life he's supposed to lead. For some, love and happiness were easy to gain. Neither one of those things, it seemed, were in the cards for him.

He's addicted. He's supposed to be the smart one, and he let it get this far. But at least the needle helps him to forget; maybe that's why he needs it so much. The rest of the team doesn't understand, but he mourns Tobias. In killing Raphael, or Charles, or whoever he'd been in that moment, he had also killed Tobias Hankel, an innocent man. He had needed help, that was all, but now it was too late. The sight of his cold, dead eyes still haunts his dreams more than anything else.

He remembers how quickly he'd lost track of time. Had he been there days, months? In reality it had been two, but it felt like centuries. Even then, the drug had been the only thing getting him by and keeping him sane.

'It helps.'

The words echo in his mind as the needle plunges in, and the familiar feeling of ecstacy fills his body. He focuses on that feeling and forgets for a moment that he's due in for work in just a few short hours, or that he hasn't slept a wink in the past two days. Sleep isn't an option anymore. On the occassion that he does try, the nightmares begin all over again. He doesn't need to sleep when he's already living in his own personal hell. Instead he relies on coffee and drugs to keep him awake; keep him sane.

The team doesn't notice. At least, that's what he's managed to convince himself. But he sees the worry in their eyes, the way they look at him  
when they don't think he's noticing. They made a pact long ago not to profile one another, but being a profiler himself he knows it's not always that easy. Someday maybe Morgan will break down his door and save him from himself, and when he's finally overcome all of this Gideon will tell him he's proud, but days like that seem so out of reach. He's slipping deeper and deeper into the abyss with each passing hour, minute, day.

It's too bad that this despair couldn't be as fleeting as his happiness.


End file.
